Living with breast cancer: Iranian women's lived experiences.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women. Women with breast cancer encounter many psychosocial stresses as well as physical problems. AIM: To capture the meaning of living with breast cancer from the unique perspective and through the lived experiences of Iranian women with breast cancer that were explained with their own words. METHODS: A phenomenological approach was used to explore the meaning of living with breast cancer for Iranian women. The patients' feelings and lived experiences with breast cancer were investigated using semi-structured interviews with probing questions with 13 women between 34 and 67 years old. FINDINGS: The participants explained their experiences of living with breast cancer as losing something important, lack of confidence, living with fear, emotional dizziness and the need to be supported with the negative aspects of breast cancer and helped to explore new aspects of life as positive aspects of this event. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Understanding the phenomenon of 'living with breast cancer' seems to be crucial for nurses to help women with breast cancer to find themselves in confronting the consequences of the changes associated with the illness.

Trucut biopsy of breast lesions: the first step toward international standards in developing countries.

UNLABELLED: The new concept in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment is based on a less invasive, more accurate and effective strategy, with a multidisciplinary approach in a specialised breast unit. When indicated, conservative surgery has replaced mastectomy with sentinel-node biopsy substituting routine axillary dissection. But the key factor in respect of these new standards is to confirm the cancer before going to the operating room. Trucut biopsy is performed instead of incisional or excisional biopsy and frozen section. The technique is reliable, simple, and reproducible, and not at all expensive; it can be adapted even for low-income developing countries. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between March 2006 and June 2010, 764 patients under clinical suspicion of cancer and/or with BIRADS (Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System) III-V in imaging in one university and one private hospital in Tehran, Iran underwent trucut biopsy (60% palpable and 40% non-palpable lesions). Cancer was found in 30.8% of the cases. In benign pathology, in concordance with clinical and imaging suspicion, surgery was omitted with short-term follow-up. For palpable symptomatic benign lesions surgery was performed to relieve the patient's symptoms. When the pathology report was not in concordance with clinical/imaging suspicion (1.8%), and in the presence of moderate and severe hyperplasia with or without atypia, in lobular and papillary lesions (4.9%) open biopsy was done to rule out cancer (10 added cancers, 1.3%; total cancers 32.1%). Cancer surgery was done as a single procedure in 89.8% of cases. CONCLUSION: Trucut biopsy for breast lesion assessment is the first step toward a new concept in breast cancer care. It is simple, reduces the number of surgeries (no surgery for non-symptomatic benign lesions and one surgery for cancer), and avoids diagnostic errors with full respect for the patient's rights. We insist on its routine use to extend international guidelines while decreasing the total cost of this common disease in all low-resource countries.